The animated series X-Men (or X-Men: The Animated Series) debuted on October 31, 1992, on the Fox Network as part of the "Fox Kids" Saturday morning lineup. The plot was loosely adapted from famous storylines and events in the X-Men comics, such as the Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, the Phalanx Covenant, and the Legacy Virus. The show features a team line-up similar to that of the early 1990s X-Men comic books: the lineup largely resembles that of Cyclops' Blue Team, established in the early issues of the second X-Men comic series. Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, Beast, Gambit, Jubilee, Jean Grey and Professor X were featured as the X-Men. All 76 episodes were directed by Larry Houston.
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Synopsis
The series' first thirteen episodes were notable for being possibly the first time that an American animated series had a full season of episodes flow one into the next as a single continuing narrative, something the series producers fought heavily for. However, starting with season three, most episodes (except for multi-part stories) were shown in random order.
Each episode was assigned two different numbers internally. One was for script order, which indicates the number assigned by the production company. The other was for the production order, which are the official episode numbers assigned by Fox Children's Network, indicating the order in which they received the episodes. These both vary from the order in which the series aired after season three. According to series writer Steven Melching, the script order is the "best guide in terms of overall series continuity, as this is how the stories were originally envisioned to flow together."
The X-Men also appeared on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in episodes "The Mutant Agenda" and "Mutants' Revenge". Storm later appeared in the three-part episode "Secret Wars" on the good side against the evil side. The series ended after the episode "Graduation Day", which aired on September 20, 1997. The X-Men animated show was the longest-running Marvel Comics animated series, lasting for five years, with five seasons and a total of 76 episodes until their record was beaten by Ultimate Spider-Man, when its 77th episode aired on October 17, 2015.
The following list reflects the episode order as originally scripted. The television air-date order and DVD release order disregard the script order. This scripted order was adopted by Disney+ shortly after launch to present the episodes as intended.
Episodes
Season 3 (1994–96)
After the five-part "Phoenix Saga", episodes were aired in a more random sequence. Also, due to animation problems with a few episodes, several did not air until the fourth or even fifth season.
Season 4 (1995–96)
Some of the Season 4 episodes were aired during Season 3 to compensate for episodes in that season being pushed back.
Season 5 (1996–97)
"Beyond Good and Evil" was meant to be the series finale, until Fox ordered more episodes at the last minute, but at a reduced budget. To save money, Saban produced episodes five to ten in-house rather than involving Graz Entertainment, to whom it had outsourced production of the series. Saban hired a studio in the Philippines, the Philippine Animation Studio (which also worked on the second season of the 1994 Fantastic Four series) because the prior animation studio AKOM was unavailable due to other projects. As such, starting with episode five, this season had a distinctly different animation style.